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Safeguarding your ideas [Express & Echo (England)](Express & Echo (England) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Despite some welcome proposals, a review of intellectual property legislation could do more to support growth and innovation in the South West, argues Ashfords partner Carl Steele TALKING BUSINESS LAST November, the Prime Minister announced an independent review into whether the UK's existing intellectual property (IP) framework supported economic growth and innovation. The idea was to identify barriers within the existing framework of laws and policies and look at how they might be overcome. The independent review was to be chaired by Professor Ian Hargreaves, an academic at the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies and Cardiff Business School, who was to be supported by a panel of experts. Shortly after the review was announced, a call for evidence was issued, which led to submissions from such distinguished bodies as the BBC, the CBI, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, the British Copyright Council and the Motion Picture Association. Private companies that made submissions included eBay, EMI, Getty Images, Google, IBM, and Microsoft. The importance of the review should not be underestimated. These days a significant proportion of the value of many companies is determined by their ownership and control of intangible assets, such as IP rights. Imagine, for instance, how the stock market would react if Google, Intel or Coca-Cola were no longer able to prevent others from using their famous brand names. But it is not just the multinational PLCs who require our IP laws and polices to be fit for purpose. If we are to stimulate business innovation and growth in the South West, we need particularly to ensure that our IP laws and policies work for the SME market, so that they encourage local inventors, entrepreneurs and early-stage investors in IP rich businesses. Many of the proposals published recently by the Hargreaves Review are to be welcomed and the Government should implement them, sooner rather than later. The review identifies proposals that will assist the growth of SMEs in the South West. These include creating the world's first 'one stop shop' digital copyright exchange, where rights owners from industries including music, film and publishing, can sell and others can buy standard form licences to use their copyright works. The proposal to introduce cheaper court procedures in this country for the enforcement of IP rights will be welcomed by smaller businesses. However, more could be done to assist the growth of the SME market. In particular, two omissions in the review stand out. First, one of the biggest obstacles to economic growth and innovation is the cost to a small, early stage business of obtaining registered IP rights, especially patents. The Government needs to think hard about making it cheaper for smaller businesses to obtain these rights. What about reduced official registration and prosecution fees for businesses with small turnovers? Or more generous tax breaks and grants.? Secondly, we need the Government to encourage more third party investment in early stage IP rich businesses. Banks and venture capitalists are often unwilling to invest in start ups and other early stage businesses on terms that are financially viable and commercially acceptable to their owners. If banks won''t provide the finance, what about encouraging ordinary, local folk to each invest a few hundred pounds of their own hard-earned money in small, third-party owned local businesses which create local jobs? This could be done by a combination of tax breaks for investors and by setting up stock and bond exchanges, so that it becomes easy to buy and sell shares and bonds in small, local businesses. Isn''t this what Mr Cameron meant by the Big Society? Furthermore, it is all very well the Government saying that we all need to be more entrepreneurial in our outlook, but steps need to be taken to educate and encourage ordinary, local people to think and behave in this way. Words are easy, but good cold cash often helps to persuade people to change their views. (c) 2011 ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved. |